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It’s not rumor but truth that fake passport are easily available in Nepal. If you have 20 thousand rupees and a photo, a passport could be easily made with in a week, according to the police investigation. Police arrested 11 people on charge of being involved in making fake passport. Police also recovered dozens of fake passport. I investigated the story and two episodes were broadcasted on KTV. The first one on July 28, 2010 and the other one on July 29, 2010. The second day had a special interview with a SSP who was doing this operation.
Video of the first part broadcasted on July 28, 2010. Navigate from 8:30 to 10:45.
Video of the first part broadcasted on July 29, 2010. Navigate from 10:45 to 18:00.

The Chairman of Constitution Assembly Subash Chandra Nemwang has said that around eighty-percent of constitution making process is completed. But political parties haven’t yet reached any conclusion on some fundamental issues like basis of federalism, structure of government and independent judiciary. CA extended it’s tenure for one more year. In the last two months, CA had only one meeting. But the expenditure of CA is increasing, with the increase in the rent of it’s building. My report on the expenditure and peace process of Nepal was broadcasted on Kantipur Television on September 08, 2010.

For the video report click here(Navigate the first five minutes of the video).

Differences between Government and Maoists over UNMIN’s mandate has created controversy in Nepal. Government and Maoists have sent two different letters to United Nations, asking for four and six months extension respectively. The major differences is over the mandate of UNMIN. Government wants UNMIN not to monitor Nepal army, which Maoist oppose.

Below is the link of my recent report on KTV on the issue. Navigate the first five minutes.http://bit.ly/c6OR04

Even though Nepal is not a safe haven for international terrorists, the United States has cautioned India that Nepal could pose a threat.
A report from the US State Department was made public last week warning India that members of extremist groups could transit from Nepal. The report claimed that Muhammad Omar Madni, a member of the terrorist group Lashkar-e Tayyiba (LT), traveled through Nepal en route to New Delhi in June of last year.
“The large ungoverned space along the Nepal/Indian border exacerbates this vulnerability, as do security shortfalls at Tribhuvan Airport, Nepal’s international airport,” the report says.
However, the report has given Nepal a clean sheet on international money laundering, saying, “There were no indications that the country was used as an international money laundering center. There were no prosecutions or arrests for money laundering in 2009.”
Regarding the bombing of a Catholic Church in May, the report said that it was conducted by the Nepalese Defense Army (NDA), a Hindu extremist group that was responsible for shooting a Catholic priest and bombing a mosque in 2008. The leader of this group has since been arrested and their activities appear to have ceased, the report said.
- Rajneesh Bhandari
As published on: http://filmat11.tv/2010/08/us-report-suggests-nepal-terrorism-threat/

As published on http://filmat11.tv/2010/07/it-works-nepal-police-claim/
After Maoists rebels laid down their arms to join the Nepalese peace process in 2006, no fewer than 109 separate armed outfits–gangs and rebel groups–sprang up to replace them in the southern plain of Terai, which sits on the border with India.
People ages 16- 35 joined these gangs and were involved in killing, abduction, extortion and even attacks on police posts in some places.
The criminal activity got so bad that, a year ago, businessmen throughout the country–tired and frightened after several kidnaps, murders and ransoms–demanded the government do something, and even the UN described the area as “a tinderbox that could spiral out of control.”
Now, according to the Nepal Police, the Special Security Plan that was implemented has worked.
“There were 109 armed groups, now there are only 10 outfits in Terai,” said police spokesman Bigyan Sharma. “Most of the people involved in the groups are arrested, and they are in the jails.”
Sharma added that out of the ten groups remaining at large, only a few are politically motivated. The deadly
splinter group Goit–which killed parliamentarian Krishna Shrestha in 2006–and Jwala are among those still active.

“It is already too late to table the annual policies, program and budget in the Legislature-Parliament,” the 57-year-old prime minister said. “Despite having a clear majority in the House, I decided to tender my resignation, with the hope that peace process and constituent making process will be completed, as it would not be right to keep the nation at indecision and confusion in situation like this.”

Few days ago Prime Minister Nepal had said he will only resign after Maoists agree on army integration and rehabilitation issues. In a program in Kathmandu he said, “I am ready to resign once the political parties reach a consensus and Maoists implement the agreements they have signed. Maoists should transform it as a civilian party.”

The Maoists haven’t yet announced their army integration/rehabilitation proposal.

But in the address he said he doesn’t want the “deadlock to continue”. It has been a month that three-point agreements were signed between the three major political parties of Nepal to end the political deadlock, one agreement with the Maoists was his resignation. Political parties extended the constituent making process for another year, a month ago.

Madhav Kumar Nepal Nepal became prime minister on May 23, 2009 after the Maoists who won most seats-230 seats out of 601- in 2008 constituent assembly election, resigned after President Ram Baran Yadav revoked the decision of the Maoist government to sack the then Army Chief Rukmangad Katwal. After that Maoists have been staging protest in the parliament and on the street against the step of the President and they call it a protest for civil supremacy. PM Nepal will serve as a care taker prime minister until a new government is formed.

“My attempts to move ahead with consensus failed because of the continuous protest of Maoists.” Nepal said. He, however, has become the longest serving communist prime minister in Nepal.

Maoists have welcomed his resignation. Maoist supremo in a newspaper interview has said, “I welcome the resignation of the prime minister, but we don’t agree with the content where he charged us being the major obstacles of the peace process.”

PM Nepal in his address thanked his 43 cabinet members, political leaders and everyone who supported his government. He has challenged the Maoist to complete the remaining tasks. PM Nepal said, “Maoists have said after my resignation, the remaining works of the constituent making process will be completed without delay, I hope that Maoists will keep their words in the coming days.”

Prime Minister Nepal, who lost the 2008 constituent assembly election from two constituencies, was later nominated as a constituent assembly and elected as a Prime Minister in May 2009.

Parties are demanding the dissolution of Maoist’s sister organization Young Communist League, that has been charged of violating law and human rights. Parties demand Maoists to return the seized property during the conflict. The major disagreement between the Maoists and the other parties is about the issues of the integration/rehabilitation of Maoists army.

PM Nepal’s government was popular for holding cabinet meeting at the Everest Base Camp and organizing a rally of summiteers during climate conference in Copenhagen. In the last year 4000 disqualified Maoist militants were taken out from the cantonments. During his 13 months tenure Prime Minister Nepal had publicized his plan that allows 3,000 Maoists militants to be integrated in the security organs which the Maoists have opposed. Though the Maoists haven’t publicized their exact number to be integrated, they want all the militants to be integrated in the Nepal Army. United Nation Mission in Nepal has verified 19, 602 Maoists army personnel and they are living in different camps.

Nepal Army officially has officially said that integration can only happen under the international rules and standards. By international standards, the government officials say, they mean militants should leave their political ideology and should be educationally and physically fit.

Because of the political deadlock the discussion on major issues such as army integration, the structure of the government: presidential form or prime minister as the chief executive; also about the numbers of states under federation and the judiciary system; whether it will be independent or under parliament is disrupted.

The decade long Maoist insurgency Nepal’s peace process started in April 2006 after the success of people’s movement ousted Monarchy. The civil war has claimed more than 13, 000 lives and an estimated 100,000 to 150,000 people were internally displaced. As published on upiu.com

It’s two weeks now since Nepal’s political leaders swore that they’d have some kind of consensus to run the country after they missed the May 28th deadline to finish the new constitution. They promised Nepalis that they’d have one done in another year. Meanwhile, they would come up with a plan.But the plan they came up with includes two tricky parts: first, the integration and rehabilitation of Maoists militants; second, the immediate resignation of Prime Minister Madhav Kumar Nepal.

Sources say there was an understanding between the parties that if Maoists agreed to start integration process, then the prime minister would resign within five days. And that is the problem.

Maoists are saying that the prime minister should resign first, while the ruling parties are saying that Maoists should integrate first.

So who is running the country in the meantime? The current government, but even its ministers are not sure for how much longer. Despite considerable confusion among officials, they are managing necessary works, like the budget.

Meanwhile, meetings continue. Inter-party and tri-party and multi-party meetings happen every day, but without much progress.

Citizens remain unimpressed. “Leaders spend more time in bargaining who should be the next prime minister rather than how to make a new constitution on time,” grumbled Nepal Yatayat as he rode a city bus in Kathmandu.
As published on http://filmat11.tv/2010/06/whos-running-nepal/

´Video journalist´ is a journalist who shoots, reports and edits his/her news stories using a laptop in the field or in the newsroom. And this solo journalism is called ´video journalism´. This method is comparatively cheaper than the conventional journalism in use, as video journalist will handle the work of cameraman, visual editor and producer. Michael Rosenblum, a pioneer in video journalism says cost can reduce up to 70 percent.

Video journalist will be able to get closer to the content, avoiding the impersonality that may come with larger crewing. A farmer will be more at ease if a video journalist approaches him rather than a big television crew. Even when one is reporting about drug addicts, a video journalist can uncover in-depth personal story.

Mark Bately, video journalist and producer of the BBC says if a journalist does three things himself, it will save time too. Mark says video journalist can make story more productive.

Another advantage is that reporter will know his shoots and can make good placements of the shots. Experts say a video journalist should take movement shoots instead shoot the movement of the character. With the advancement of technology and its accessibility, video journalism is emerging fast. Hence, video journalists are gradually replacing the conventional television journalists.

It´s History

If we look back to the history of televisions video journalism is not old profession. In the early 1990s, the news channel NY1 was the first to hire only video journalists. In 2001 the BBC started to switch to video journalism in all its regional offices, a process that was organized by Michael Rosenblum.

The BBC had more than 600 of its staff trained as video journalists by June 2005. Now the Video journalists cover one third of the stories broadcasted in the BBC regions.

Voice of America, Video News International and New York 1 and other broadcasting entities are employing this method. Video journalism seems to become more widespread among newspapers as well. Few months ago The Washington Post has announced that they were going to train 300 people in their newsroom to be video literate. Across the world, newspapers are rapidly embracing video.

In context to Nepal

Few months ago Mark Batey, a video journalist and producer of BBC gave a presentation on video journalism in Kathmandu. Mark is also a trainer of BBC who is on a mission to produce more video journalists in BBC throughout the world. Mark was here in Kathmandu to train BBC journalists and was invited by Kantipur Television for a two hours presentation. His experience is that video journalist can make the story more natural. In the presentation Mark shared some of his visual stories.

In Nepali media most of the journalists working in Television are not video journalist. They are television journalist. Video journalist has to do all the three tasks: film, report and edit. The district reporters who file their report and visuals don´t edit so they cannot be called a video journalist.

But video journalism has met oppostion. Mark from his own training experience says most journalist above 40 years don´t like being a video journalist. Senior journalists of my television attending the presentation also didn´t like the idea of video journalist. They say it would be difficult to cover parliamentarian and political stories. Their argument is that a one-man journalist cannot film qualitative visual and collect important information.

But Mark along with other video journalists says it is possible and one just needs some practice.

Conclusion

Video Journalism seems to create a revolution in television journalism worldwide. Newspapers are also opening up with video edition in the web. As online media are using more video journalist for their video edition. Hence the scope is broad.

The question arises can Nepal adopt this method? More than twenty television stations have received broadcast license from the Ministry of Information of which eight are already broadcasting.

So video journalism can prove more productive for these television stations. This cost reduction method can attract the management of these televisions. In years to come they will surely be looking not just for conventional journalist but for video journalist who is sound with television and knows the art of reporting.Note: The article was originally published on www.americanchronicle.com/articles/view/96956(April 02, 2009).